


our love is like jesus, but worse

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Amnesia, Depression, Gen, Mania, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:37:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Patton is here.He thinks he is, anyway.





	our love is like jesus, but worse

**Author's Note:**

> read the tags!!! read the tags!!!
> 
> this is either the lightest or darkest part of this series so far. also, i'm an adult, and this is a series about (an) adult(s). i know that minors will read this, no matter what, so. yeet, i suppose. i'm pretty sure that most of the previous content warnings of this series apply, and, if you haven't read them, then. why are you reading this. it won't make sense

He doesn’t know what his name is, but he recognises the room around him like he remembers how to breathe.

Wait… _Does_ he remember how to breathe?

Yes. Yes, he does. Lungs move, stomach moves, up and down with little puffs of air.

“Patton?”

That voice, hesitant and hopeful, is just as familiar as the room. He turns to look at the person speaking.

There’re two people, nearly identical. Both white men, with brown eyes and bags under them that stained, bruise-like, on their soft, sallow cheeks. Their floppy brown hair was in dire need of a cut. They looked like a part of his own self.

“Patton!” the one in the grey pyjama top exclaims, before tackling him in a hug.

Reflexively, his – Patton’s? –arms wrap around the man. He holds him, pressing just firmly enough so he would feel secure and not crushed.

“You’re _here_,” he – Grey Guy – mutters. “You’re here, you’re here, _you’re here_!”

“I’m here,” he replies. Then, he asks, “I’m Patton?”

The hug is broken, as quickly as it started. Grey Guy leans back, still holding his arms, and looks at him. “You don’t remember?”

He glances over at the other guy, the one dressed in black. That man looks at him in a way that kind of feels twisty, you know? Not _bad_, not bad at all, but kind of… Different?

“Sorry, kiddo,” he says, the nickname rolling off his tongue weirdly. “I don’t really remember, well, anything.”

“But,” Grey Guy sputters, “you’re _Patton_!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

And, well, Grey Guy sure does _sound_ pretty sure.

He nods. “Then I’m Patton, I guess! Gee, that name’s sure growing on me quickly.”

“That-” The other guy coughs. His voice does sound pretty rough. “That’s because it’s your name.”

Patton laughs. “Well, I know that _now_! I don’t know either of yours, though.”

Grey Guy’s face falls even worse. Patton’s gut clenches like he’d just swallowed a pound of iron.

“I’m Thomas,” he says.

The other guy, the Thomas lookalike, adds, “And I’m Roman. I represent Thomas’s creativity, and ego, and long-term desires.”

Patton smiles and nods. “I don’t understand that at all.”

“You don’t need to understand,” Thomas beams, standing up and taking Patton’s hand in one of his, and Roman’s in the other. “We just need to find the others!”

* * *

“Guys!”

Thomas claps his hands together a few times. The sound is light, mixing with his singsong voice, as he spins in the centre of his living room. Roman’s gravitated to stand against the TV, like it’s second nature to him, and he gestures for Patton to stand in front of the window.

“Guys, come on! I’ve got some great news!”

Another guy who looks like Thomas and Roman in a black hoodie comes to sit on the stairs, and he immediately shifts out of the way to let yet another doppelganger pass by. This one is wearing a black polo shirt with a tie. That can’t be fashionable, right?

They both look up to see Patton, and their mouths drop.

The weird thing is, the other two Thomas twins don’t walk in. Instead, they kind of rise out of the ground, one next to the stairs with Tie Guy, and the other next to Roman. Both of those look a lot less like Thomas. One of them has a moustache and a pale streak in his hair, while the other has… An entire half of his face covered in snake scales?

“Okay, do I need glasses, or am I seeing double everywhere?”

Patton’s attempt at a joke falls very flat indeed. Tie Guy’s mouth has tightened, half-pursed, while the one in the hoodie hasn’t moved. Snake Face is staring at Patton, with his brows furrowed, while Roman’s moustachioed friend is looking between Roman and Patton with a weird expression.

“Patton’s back!” Thomas exclaims.

The heavy silence breaks, as if it was shattered with a sledgehammer. Dark Hoodie Man launches himself at Patton, not unlike how Thomas did earlier, and Patton holds him in the same instinctive hug.

“You’re back,” the guy whispers. His voice is thick and hitching, and it’s muffled in Patton’s nightdress. “You’re alive, I _knew it_. I love you. I didn’t say it enough before, Patton. I love you so fucking much.”

Hesitantly, Patton lets out, “Language?”

Hoodie Man makes a noise that is either a laugh or a sob. Either way, Patton doesn’t move as the front of his nightdress becomes damp.

“I don’t believe it,” says Tie Guy. “This shouldn’t be possible.”

Thomas shakes his head. “But it is! Doesn’t this mean that the medication’s working?”

Tie Guy adjusts his glasses, and replies, awkwardly, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. you see-”

“He doesn’t have any memories, so we all need to reintroduce ourselves!” Roman interrupts.

Dark Hoodie Man pulls back enough to look at Patton with worry in his red-rimmed eyes and a weak smile warring on his lips. “I’m… I’m Thomas’s anxiety. My name’s Virgil.”

When Patton says, “That’s a nice name,” with a big grin on his face, he doesn’t do it out of what he actually thinks, because, well, he’s not sure what he really thinks right now! He just goes with what feels right in his gut.

It’s the right thing to say, because Virgil’s mouth breaks into a smile, before he buries his face in Patton’s chest again.

“I’m Thomas’s logical Side,” says Tie Guy. “I go by Logan.”

Snake Face would have been better impulsively named Poker Face, because Patton has no idea what he’s thinking.

“I go by Ethan now,” he says, “but you knew me as Deceit before you… Went away.”

There’s some kind of pang in Patton’s tummy, but then Moustache Man is stepping forwards, after elbowing Roman.

“I’m everything that Thomas hates about himself!” he laughs. “Seriously, pretty much everyone hates me on some level, and you most of all!”

Patton blinks. “I don’t hate you, though! I don’t even know you!”

In an instant, Mr. Moustache is standing in front of Patton, an inch or so from his face. Virgil’s grip tightens, and Patton rubs his back in a way he hopes is comforting. He’s not really sure if it’s working, because his face is filled with a scary version of Thomas, and his nose is filled with smells so terrible that Patton’s nostrils are flaring to try and identify enough to feel appropriately disgusted.

“Remus,” the man smirks, barely suppressing his laughter in a mockery of seductiveness, then he presses a kiss to Patton’s mouth. Even though their lips stay closed, it still tastes like vomit. “Feel free to scream it out anytime.”

And then he’s right back where he was, next to Roman, who says, “That was disgusting.”

Remus waves coquettishly at Patton, while grinning at his friend. “Aw, sweet brother, no! That was _invigorating_.”

“Uh,” says Patton, moving on to petting Virgil’s hair. “Can I ask a question?”

“Shoot!” Thomas replies. He’s bouncing on his toes.

Patton moves a hand for a second, pushing it by his cheek before combing his fingers through his hair. “You kept saying that you’re, like, sides of Thomas? I don’t get it. Aren’t you all brothers or something?”

Looks are exchanged around the room. The pound of iron has made its return to Patton’s tummy.

* * *

“Thomas-”

The aforementioned man flat-out ignores Logan. He looks up from his laptop screen, grinning at Patton. He shifts the screen on his legs to point out some kind of desk organiser.

“Hey, Patton, should I get this?” he asks.

Patton’s barely looked at it when Thomas clicks _Add to Cart_. Then he’s back, scrolling through products on the screen.

Logan tries again. “Thomas, we need to-”

Thomas shuffles closer to Patton on the couch, his butt bumping against Virgil’s where the latter is curled up with his head on Patton’s lap. He points out a dress form, saying something about using it to store costumes in an even nicer way, and adds it to the online cart before Patton can say anything.

He looks around at the dusty living room. Logan’s pacing in front of the dark TV, breathing audibly through his gritted teeth. Virgil is lying on the couch, between Thomas and Patton himself, with his legs tucked against his chest and his head in Patton’s lap, just to have his hair petted absently. Thomas’s face is lit by his laptop glow as the night sets in, and, on the other part of the couch, Roman lies with his eyes closed.

“Do we really need to buy those things?” Patton doesn’t know if he means to sound hesitant when he speaks, but it gets everyone’s attention, regardless. Well, except for Roman, but Patton’s kind of sure that the guy’s asleep.

“I mean, it would make getting organised a lot easier,” Thomas shrugs.

Patton mirrors him. “Can’t we just clean?”

After a second, the sound of the laptop shutting fills the room.

“Patton, I love you!” Thomas beams, leaning over Virgil to get a hug. “You’re a genius!”

Logan was shut up with instructions to organise the cleaning products, while Patton put on a Spotify playlist, and Virgil called the other Sides into the living room. It doesn’t take long until they’re all taking damp cloths to every hard surface, wiping away months of dust onto the floor, to the sound of Ingrid Michaelson telling them to _Be OK_. Ethan takes a vacuum cleaner to the couch cushions and then the floor, while Logan makes sure that Remus actually takes out the trash instead of making it into a stinky shrine of stinkiness.

Patton doesn’t realise that Thomas has fallen asleep until he sees the sun rise. He’s cuddled up on the newly-clean sofa against Virgil’s chest, with his legs knotted with Roman’s. Distantly, he hears Logan and Ethan’s voices conversing.

“…Ignoring the mania…”

“…Side effects…”

“…Can’t keep on like this, or…”

Is he hearing them, or is he in a dream? Patton can’t really tell. He blinks, and-

“…It’s just plain weird, you know? I’m not ungrateful, but…”

“…Should be a blessing, but I can’t help but feel a little disconcerted…”

“…Doesn’t feel real…”

“…Doesn’t need glasses…”

“…I’m afraid…”

Huh? Who are they talking about?

* * *

The combined powers of Roman and Patton have led to Thomas going out with a few of his friends to see a movie! Of course, it also required a few appeals to Logic, and a lot of effort in relieving Anxiety, but, nevertheless, it worked!

It’s such a shame that there’s now no centre to keep the arguments balanced.

“Roman, please, why won’t you listen to me?”

Roman huffs. “Maybe because I’m actually feeling okay, for once? I don’t need to be reminded about how you’re all too caught up in pills to actually do your jobs.”

Logan clenches a fist in his hair. “But I am! You’ve got to understand; this is for everyone’s benefit. We can’t go on like this. _Thomas_ can’t go on like this.”

“Thomas will be _fine_. Look, I’m actually having ideas for once.” Roman waves his little notebook in the air, too quickly for anyone to see the words written down in that spidery scrawl. “Just let me get them all down. I’m gonna do the best thing I can ever do because of this, just you wait.”

Patton wonders if the others know what Roman thinks that the best thing he can ever do is.

“The best thing you can do,” says Logan, lowly, “is to write down your symptoms and go back to the psychiatrist, because the citalopram clearly _isn’t_ working.”

“Fuck off, Belle with no balls,” Roman says, still writing.

It takes a moment for Logan to respond. “I. I really. Is that really the best insult you can come up with? Some weird attempt of transphobic hypermasculinity? I don’t think I can actually be offended, because that’s honestly making me worry about you even more.”

Roman doesn’t look up from the notebook, though he does flip a page. “Take your worries and stick them where your mouth is. You can just hold them there, like a little bitch who’s being a little _itch_ in my side, and suck on them if you _really_ have to move your mouth so much.”

“You’ve regressed,” says Logan, in a way that would be flippant if his brows weren’t so furrowed. “You’re acting like a teenage boy.”

“Let me see that.”

Ethan reaches out to grab the notebook, but his hand, paler than even his face, is scratched by Roman’s fingers. With a hiss, the hand is pulled away, and Ethan cradles it to his chest.

“What the fuck, Princey?” Virgil asks, getting up from where he was perched next to Patton. “What did you do that for?”

“They’re my ideas. I don’t want anyone else looking at them.”

Virgil’s expression doesn’t really change. “You’re going to have to share them eventually.”

Suddenly, the urge to speak overtakes Patton. “Please, kiddos, can we leave Roman alone? It’s a good thing that he’s getting ideas, right? And if he wants to do write them down by himself, then we should leave him to it.”

“Did Roman say anything about being left alone?” asks Deceit.

“He didn’t,” Virgil says.

“I do, though,” says Roman, not looking up at them. “Want to be left alone, that is.”

Patton gestures. “Then what’s the problem? You should all go and do something else.”

Instead of immediately leaving to go and do something else, Logan and Deceit exchange significant-looking looks.

“I think we should,” says Virgil, stepping down from his couch perch. “C’mon, Patton, let’s go.”

Patton loves Virgil. He loves everyone equally, except for Thomas, maybe, but that’s just because Thomas is everyone put together! That means that he’s more loveable than any individual Side! Anyway, Patton loves Virgil, but the thought of leaving Roman is just…

“I can’t,” he says.

Logan and Deceit exchange another look. A quick glance to his left shows that Virgil’s seen it, too.

“Can’t, or won’t?” asks Deceit.

The question leaves Patton blank for a moment. There’s a difference? What are the intricacies of that difference, or those differences, as the case might be. There’s a right answer and a wrong answer, Patton can tell, but he knows neither what the criteria of _right_ or _wrong_ contain, but also which answer is which.

“Won’t,” he says, with some certainty.

Deceit licks his lips for a short moment. It’s the answer the two of them were hoping for, Patton’s fairly sure, but there’s a sinking feeling in his tummy that tells him that he’s metaphorically stepped into some kind of trap.

“Come along,” says Deceit. As he turns halfway to sink out, his snakelike left eye is the last thing to look at the two of them, Roman and Patton both.

“You too, Count Crapula,” says Roman, not looking up from his notebook.

Virgil glares at Roman. “I’ll actually murder you.”

Roman peers through his eyelashes as a jaunty smirk plays on his lips. “Try it, bitch!”

With a groan, Virgil leaves, and Roman goes back to writing.

* * *

Deep in his heart, Patton thinks, he can hear someone crying. Screaming, yelling, singing, sobbing. An affected accent breaking with overuse. Some feelings, and-

Oh.

_“You’re all sides of my personality,” Thomas had been gently explaining. “You’re, like, the embodiments of different schemas that I have.”_

_Patton hesitated, before asking, “Skee-what now?”_

_“Schemas,” interrupted Logan, “are the aspects of peoples’ personalities that shine through more strongly at different times, and with different people.”_

_“I act like all of you at different times, depending on which of my personality traits I’m using more,” Thomas had continued._

_Logan’s eye had twitched. “Yes. That is what I just said.”_

_Nodding, Patton said, “So, I’m one of these Sides?”_

_“Yes. My morality, and my emotions,” Thomas told him._

_“You also embody short-term goals, such as the things that Thomas wants to eat, and the reward centre for tasks like grocery shopping and being with friends,” Logan added._

_“I’m your emotions, though, huh?” murmured Patton. “Geez, kiddo, it must’ve been a tough time without me.”_

_Thomas had nodded at that, his eyes wide. “It was. It was really tough. But you’re here now, and I already feel better than ever!”_

But now, he can hear something else.

“Don’t want to! Don’t want to!”

Over and over again, in that ear-splitting voice.

“Want to die! Want to die!” Over and over, “Want to die!”

For the first time, Patton’s breath hitches. His eyes are warm. No, they’re burning! And then they’re bleeding wet fire-tears, even though his mouth and throat are both dry.

“Roman,” he says, in a voice that is his own. “Roman, this isn’t right. This… We need help. We need to ask someone for help.”

“We need to _die_,” growls Roman in response.

Patton shakes his head so fast that his glasses should be falling off. “No, we don’t! That’ll hurt Thomas!”

Without warning, Roman shouts, “No shit!”

The notebook goes flying across the room, landing open on a blank page.

“Thomas doesn’t deserve to be alive! He’s failed all his friends. There’s no hope for the future. There’s nothing new to go forth towards.” Roman gestures, hands splayed out, just like Patton always does. “I tried to make some hope, but it’s…”

His laugh isn’t a happy sound.

“It’s hopeless.”

Patton reaches out to try to hold Roman. “Oh, no! Nothing’s _hopeless_!”

Roman’s face contorts. He gets off of the couch to back away from Patton. “You’re wrong. You’re just the last figment of… You’re just a bunch of desperate lies.” He snorts. “God, Deceit’s really rubbed off on me, hasn’t he? And you, I guess.”

There’s a moment of silence. Water drips from Patton’s cheeks in a steady stream, but the ache in his chest isn’t his own.

“You know,” Roman says, giving a watery smile. “You really do sound like him.”

When Patton tries to talk next, his lips move, but no sound escapes him.

“I’d say that I love you, but, without Patton, none of us can honestly love Thomas, you know?”

Roman takes Patton’s outstretched hand.

* * *

_but it's not nice, and it's not right, to try to kill the same thing twice_

**Author's Note:**

> i think i did okay in communicating what i meant? please tell me if you're confused; i'm egocentric and love talking about my thoughts


End file.
